Heavy-Duty Clamping Horses

The weight’s a good thing — sawhorses with heft don’t move around, particularly when supporting heavy deck materials. Plus, each JawHorse is rated for a 300-pound load.

by Andy Engel

JawHorseRockwell866/514-7625 rockwelltools.com Street price: $180

Regular Tool Kit readers might remember that I raved in the November issue about the virtues of lightweight tools. I’m taking a different tack now. On my bathroom scale, a single JawHorse weighs 45 pounds. But in this case, the weight’s a good thing — sawhorses with heft don’t move around, particularly when supporting heavy deck materials. Plus, each JawHorse is rated for a 300-pound load.

Another factor that contributes to the JawHorse’s stability is the three-legged design, which is great for the uneven ground deck builders tend to work on (Figure 1). It would be even better if one of those legs were adjustable — for leveling the horse — but that’s nit picking.

You might think that at 45 pounds each, the horses would be a chore to move, but they’re not. Folded up, the single leg acts as a carry handle (Figure 2); be a little careful here — the knob that clamps the leg in position has to be tightened firmly, or the leg could slip and the horse open up in midcarry. On smooth surfaces, you can swing that leg out of the carry-handle position and use it to pull the JawHorse along on its integral roller.

ShingleVent II-9 has a 9-inch exposure for use with cedar shake or enhanced ridge cap shingles on 3/12 to 12/12 roof pitches, and it features an external wind baffle that deflects wind up and over the ridge, creating low pressure above the vent openings on both sides to pull air evenly out of the attic.